Mid-Winter - January 24, 2020

Winter is half over today. I know, I know, the worst half is yet to come. February - the shortest month that feels like the longest - in my opinion. This is Leap Year too which means we actually have 29 days of February instead of the usual 28 days. Yipee.

When the melting ice and snow slides off the roof and it reacts with the wind, some interesting natural sculptures are produced. (I find beauty in this.) Clicking on photos will enlarge them.

I love the crescent moon in this sunrise shot.

People who have been hurt either pass it on and become abusive themselves, abuse themselves, or they develop a great kindness.

Sometimes the sunrise changes so much in the short space of only a few minutes that it seems like your witnessing many miraculous mornings in simply one morning.

"Rose clasped her hands around her knees. How passionately she longed to be important to somebody again - not important on platforms, not important as an asset in an organization, but privately important, just to one person, quite privately, nobody else to know or notice. It didn't seem much to ask in a world crowded with people, just to have one of them, only one, out of all the millions, to oneself., oh Somebody who needed one, who thought of one, who was eager to come to one - oh, oh how dreadfully one wanted to be precious." Rose Arbuthnot - Enchanted April

When someone stabs you, 

it's not your fault that you feel pain.

That's the advantage with psychopaths - they think they're so fantastic that sooner or later they make a mistake. "Professor T"

Drop the old story.

Give what you didn't get.

Give more.

Love more.

Gary Shandling

Senator McCarthy would tell a lie 

that he knew was a lie and 

by the time you tracked it down, 

he had told three more.

Snowstorm - January 18/19, 2020

We got hit again with snow and wind; it's simply beautiful here whether the snow comes in a gale or softly sifts down to carpet the trees, buildings, land, and animals. Most flickers migrate south in the winter but one decided to stay here and I'm grateful.

Some random reflections.

I am a child of fortune and I shall not be shamed

I ask to be no other than I am

Oedipus - Sophocles

They who go feel not the pain of parting.

It's they who stay behind that suffer

Acceptance is a bad thing.

Nothing bold or magnificent is built from fear.

. . .  putting up walls. What people mistook for safety 

was in fact captivity. - Louise Penny

Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.

You don't try to teach a pig to sing. 

It doesn't work and it annoys the pig

Joy doesn't ever leave you know. 

It's always with you.

And one day you'll find it again. Louise Penny

We all want to be better people than we are. Silk

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish - Euripides

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Sometimes it's the very people who no one imagines anything of 

who do the things that no one can imagine. 

Christopher (Alan Turing)

When you come out of your mother's downstairs, 

you come out like a rocket fired into a brick wall three feet away. 

Make the most of those three feet. - Silk

T'is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

Hamlet - Shakespeare

Projection

They're right! You're never too old to learn new things. A term I'd never heard before now has become well known, even popular. Projection.  (Clicking on photos will enlarge them.)

Jon Parlangeli 

I don't know if this is a real psychological term but that is apparently how it's being used - as a psychological word.

The Red Glove - Jon Parlangeli

To the best of my ability and understanding "projection" means that something a person is accusing another person of doing is actually something that person, the accuser, is doing themself. (I'm using "them" to mean him/her which seems to be the new usage.) They are projecting their "deed" onto another person.

Jon Parlangeli

So if I'm driving erratically on the expressway, then I accuse others of doing that. I believe that the person, the accuser, is not necessarily aware that that is what they are doing. It's hidden from the consciousness of the accuser - maybe. The accusation is produced subconsciously. I think.

Jon Parlangeli

So if I am committing adultery. I accuse someone else of sleeping around. I believe I have that correct. If I obtain money illegally from a "lender", a foreign government, or billionaire and then hide that money somewhere, then I accuse others of doing that. If I launder drug money, then "they" are guilty instead.

Jon Parlangeli

If I'm cheating on my income taxes, I accuse someone else of hiding money from the government. If I gossip about someone or say bad things about them, then I accuse them of that same activity.

Niagara - Jon Parlangeli

If I'm spying on someone else (or hiring someone to spy on someone else), I accuse that person of spying on me. I say that they are wire tapping me or photographing me.

Jon Parlangeli

If I'm conspiring along with someone else to commit a felony, I find someone else to accuse of doing that same thing. The idea is to deflect attention away from my activity.

Lake Huron Beginning Dusk - Jon Parlangeli

If I lie, I accuse others of lying, creating fake news, for example.

Jon Parlangeli

If I conspire to hide my income in an offshore account, I point the finger at someone else who either may or may not be doing the same thing. That doesn't really matter - whether the other person is actually doing it.

Jon Parlangeli

If I hide conversations, well then. that's what I accuse another of doing. Anything to deflect attention from me. If I have dirt on someone that I've discovered illegally, then I accuse another of digging false information on me.

Jim and David - Jon Parlangeli

If I accuse someone of dropping their friends for no reason, then that's what I'm doing. The cool thing about this projection-thing is that if one pays close attention, then you can see what the other person is actually doing - wrong. I would think reporters would glom onto that and do their fact checking accordingly.

Jon Parlangeli

This projection thing is pure evil. And It works. Apparently. I transfers the focus away from me to someone else. Accuse. Distract. If I accuse your children of doing nefarious things, then you just know for sure that my own kids are up to no good.

Leonardo - Jon Parlangeli

It's a little like, if I understand it right, like the old shell game. Hide the pea under one of three shells. Distract attention away from the shells while you're hiding the pea perhaps in your hand. Move the shells around to distract. When the victim point to a shell and the cover is removed - no pea. Cleverly drop the pea as you turn over another shell. That's worked successfully for generations, eh?

Study for New Religion - Jon Parlangeli

Was it P. T. Barnum that said that there's a sucker born every minute?  The oldest, or one of the oldest, con games in the world.

Jon Parlangeli

And. It. Works. Still. Politicians have always been good at this game. Some politicians anyway.

Jon Parlangeli

Some professions are also very good at this game too, eh? A sucker born every minute. Kill someone in broad daylight in the middle of Fifth Avenue, eh?

Shakespeare Re-Discovered

Measure for Measure

 Many years ago several times a year we would travel by car from the Detroit area to Stratford, Ontario, Canada to stay at hotels or bed & breakfasts, dine at amazing restaurants, stroll along the Avon, eat picnics that we had assembled at home, amazing picnics, in the park, and attend marvelous plays. We saw many world class actors and made many lasting memories. We escaped the humdrum and the mind numbingness of our jobs, good jobs, but less than. (Clicking on photos will enlarge them.)

Unheimlich - Jonathan Rajewski

I was much younger then, of course, and deeper stuff went both into my brain and also often right over my head. Fortunately I remember. And also happily I have had the experiences now to really appreciate and understand what surely my older and wiser friends back then, now long gone, were better equipped to appreciate/understand then. I miss them terribly.

Sexus - Jonathan Rajewski

We saw a diverse array of presentations from many playwrights  in several theaters. I still sing the Gilbert and Sullivan songs and enjoy their musicals whenever they are shown. I really enjoyed the comedies, tragedies, dramas but I think I enjoyed the companionship of like minded souls the most. We always had a good time.

Untitled - Jonathan Rajewski

The weather has been horrific which has given me lots of down time, time to revisit previously recorded programs. I had forgotten how amazing the whole PBS/BBC series on Shakespeare's plays -  "Shakespeare Uncovered" with Romola Garai - is.

There Is No Heaven for Concepts

Jonathan Rajewski

Shakespeare based this play (Measure for Measure) on the Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 7:1 - "Judge not that he be not judged for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged and with what measure ye meet it shall to you be measured again." (There's the measure for measure.)

Dow Chemical Death Camp

Jonathan Rajewski

All my life I've heard "Judge not lest you be judged". Excellent advice, in my opinion. I've also heard, like everyone else, that you've got to be careful because "karma" will give you what you gave others. Well, I may be speaking out of turn, but I don't believe that. Of course I wish that were true. It would be nice to think what you put out there will come back to you, the bad as well as the good, but I don't think that happens and more importantly, for me at least, that's not why you do what's right. Why you do unto others what you would have them do unto you. Simply you do what's right and we all really do know what's right.

Chalk - Jonathan Rajewski*

No. I just think it's easier to be nice and a lot less stressful. There are many bad actors out there, some of them are in politics. It has always been thus. I do believe that more people are good and do good. Yes, of course, sometimes good people do bad things. But on the whole they live good lives. There are also some bad people who occasionally do good things. Sometimes. And there are irretrievably bad guys. The general trend is up even though there are down times. Like now.

Untitled - Jonathan Rajewski* 

Untitled - Jonathan Rajewski*

* - not in my collection - unfortunately.

Twenty/Twenty

Snow flurries today, Wednesday, January 8, 2020, and winter is back after a brief respite. The birds are back using the feeders; when the weather was milder, they were apparently off foraging naturally. It's good to see the juncos, goldfinches, cardinals, chickadees - lots and lots of chickadees, and various woodpeckers back. Clicking on photos enlarges them.

The flurries came from the north coating the side of the niger seed feeders. A clever American goldfinch harvested seeds from the south side.

Downy Woodpecker on suet feeder

It's easy to see why this bird is a Red-Bellied Woodpecker

The Cardinals come just before dusk.

Is that because they are too easy for predatory hawks 

to see when it's lighter out?

Some folks love looking at sunsets;

for me it's the sunrises I really enjoy.

Homage a Rothko

Abstract Realism?

My Clivia are starting to flower again. Perfect timing. I try to find house plants that flower in the middle of winter and have a pleasant odor. Both are medicinal and help me with my SADD during the seemingly endless cloudy, gray days typical of Michigan's winters. The scent from the Clivia is not strong but it is still pleasant.

Still doing very well are the delightfully smelling orchids. 

Their perfume fills the air nearby.